Lovers Under A Demon Moon
by BakaInuGirl
Summary: Under the steadfast watch of the Demon Moon two lovers meet for the first and last time. One-shot.


Lovers Under A Demon Moon

A/N: So I was surfing through my word documents the other day looking for a recipe for a casserole my friend Ca had given me for this awesome chicken thingy. Anywho, while on my search I came across this short story I had written _months_ ago. So, like a photo album you haven't seen in awhile, or a CD you haven't listened to in forever, I opened up the file and started reading. I get down into the story when I go, "Oh! That's where I got Assassin's Hope!" I even took a complete LINE from this story and had no idea! 'Lovers' was a short story I had written for a friend's anthology, which I may add with a huff he has not put together yet! I had original characters for it and everything but upon reading it, thought how amazing and perfect it was for fanfiction! So, here's a look into my earlier writing. Oh, yeah! On a personal note, lots of reviewers (bows respectfully to ALL my reviewers on both ff . net and mm . org) have asked if I major in some literary subject in college and suggest I should become a writer. A) I've already graduated college with a bachelor's in psych, hence why a lot of my writing has a kind of morbid feel to it... B) I _am _new at writing fanfiction, but I've been writing for years. Although, for some reason I think my fanfiction is the best work I've ever done. I had a poem published once (I was 14 but hey! Everything counts!) and I'm still hoping when that anthology gets its act together we're all published! I just hope that _when_ I'm published I'll get such great reviews as I have from all of you! This is intended to be a one-shot. So, without anymore stalling here's Lovers Under the Demon Moon an original fiction that has been refurbished (and parts rewritten) and submitted as a fanfiction. Enjoy! BakaInuGirl

**Lovers Under A Demon Moon**

The sun had begun to set and slowly the Demon Moon rose. And in those few moments of dusk, when light begins to turn to dark, when mothers call home their playing children away from the growing shadows where evil lurks, when young lovers watching a sunset seek warmth and comfort from each other because they feel an ever-growing chill rising from the onset of night, when darkness sneaks out from the cover of night to strangle the light of day, during these precise moments he stabbed her, with glistening eyes full of excitement, lust, and insanity.

She gasped, the pain registering somewhere in her body, looked at him then, and knew. Everything came to her with amazing clarity: the rough scratching of his denim against her inner thighs, his nails digging into the perfect pale skin of her wrists, the copper and earthy smell of her own blood oozing to the moss covered grass beneath them, and the ragged breaths he took that blew directly into her face with the faint smell of the honeysuckle they had tasted earlier.

There had been warnings all over the news, posters hanging up warning young women to be aware of their surroundings, and lectures at every school in the tri-city area. Every year for about five years, around this night a new girl was chosen to die. People began spreading urban rumors that it was a demon that killed them so ruthlessly. But she knew that _he_ had killed all of those women, and now she saw, with absolutely no regret. She saw in his face that he was someone completely different from whom she had shared those beautiful moments with throughout the night.

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He had been such a gentleman the entire evening. She had met him at the festival the town held every year at this time, the same small festival most towns have where town mothers boast their latest recipe for sweet potato pie, where children with painted faces run around high off of the latest cloud of cotton candy they had inhaled. She had gone with a bunch of her friends from the high school, but quickly realized that they had all brought someone with them to enjoy the festival, someone to hold onto in the haunted house painted with fading glow in the dark paint, someone to kiss as the fireworks went off.

She told them she was going for a drink at the food tent, maybe even get one of those treats with powdered sugar all over them, which you inevitably got down the front of your shirt. She had only taken her eyes off of where she was walking for a second to glance at the games that were set up when she bumped into someone and was sent sprawling onto the hay covered ground.

Her bottom sore and hay sticking out of her hair she looked up to see a boy with violet eyes staring down at her with a worried expression on his face. He held out his hand and she took it, giving him a small smile of thanks. It went surprisingly fast from there. They spent the rest of the day at the festival, playing those games that you knew were rigged but you threw your money at anyway, visiting the few animals that they have at festivals making up the 'petting farm,' and they laughed at those that subjected themselves to the pie eating contest.

When he suggested they go for a walk in the park she never hesitated. She looked up at his face and saw a caring young man with these intense violet eyes that spoke volumes to her silently and jet-black hair that flowed everywhere wildly. He was gentle, soft-spoken in a way, and caring. She saw someone she could easily fall in love with.

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Now though...

She only saw the demon.

The one reflected perfectly in the orange-silver orb above the earth. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind something stirred and she suddenly realized: he only killed on this night. When the Demon Moon rises low in the sky, impossibly large and ominous, when the winds carry the scent of death on the tips of each breeze.

She wondered how many had he killed? How many had he brought here, looking for acceptance, someone to fill the void that no doubt consumed him? And she finally wondered, when would he stop? Would she be the last?

He stabbed her again and again, each time thrusting the small blade at the only angle that would prove fatal. A thin line of crimson colored blood ran from her perfectly formed mouth. He dipped his head then and carefully followed the path of the shining liquid with his tongue. He raised his head once more to look at her with the face of an idolatrous worshiper.

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They walked through the park talking about things young teenagers find fascinating, the latest song on the radio, or movie that everyone was waiting to be released. They walked past some honeysuckle trees and he plucked a few blossoms for them to taste. He led her to a small clearing in the park, a lake only a short distance away. They sat on the soft grass, still warm from the afternoon sun. He told her then, about his family life. How he had been beaten and hated as a child, told he was never to be loved, he would never be worth anyone's time or day. She turned her head away from him when he finished his story and couldn't believe the cruelty he had to live through. She wanted to hold him, tell him he would be loved. He spoke her name softly and she turned towards him. He took her hand in his and pulled her closer to him, wanting to hold onto something if only for a brief moment.

_Kiss me_, she thought as he held her. He pulled back from her just far enough to press a chaste kiss to her warm lips. She sighed and parted her lips, silently begging that he deepen their kiss. He needed no encouragement and wrapped his arms around her waist drawing her even closer to his own body. He slowly laid her down on the ground moving his kisses down her jaw to her neck, kissing softly. She made small mewling sounds in the back of her throat encouraging him to go on, wanting him to never cease his ministrations.

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She managed to free one hand from his grip, saw him tense at her expected struggle, and saw the look of surprise, as she gave none. She carefully cupped his cheek with her slender fingers and looked at him with what could only be love. She had shed no tears up to this moment. Her conscious thoughts had receded somewhere to the back of her mind, but now knowing everything he had been through, knowing that he couldn't stop himself or didn't know how to, she cried for him. Silent tears running streaks down her pale cheeks and onto the soft ground below them, were only shed for him.

Three words uttered from her now gray lips halted his ministrations.

"I forgive you."

He stared into her eyes, the color of a storm on a deep summer's day, mouth hanging open slightly, eyes full of confusion, and hair standing on end at the nape of his neck. His own eyes, having grown dark from the bloodlust, looked lost, his mind forgotten for the sake of the kill.

"What? What did you say?" he asked incredulously.

"I forgive you," she repeated, only now her voice had become raspy with effort at trying to gain her breath. Struggling against every strand of fate hanging so heavily in the air to hang on for him.

"I don't understand," he stated with confusion still glazed over in his eyes.

Of course, how could he understand, she thought. He had been doing this for years. Years of rage, pent up from the abuse he lived through as a child.

"I know who you are," she rasped further, "I can never understand how much pain you went through, but you need to know that I forgive you."

She felt stupid. Lying there dying by the blade he cut her with so deeply, and she was forgiving him. Not only forgiving him, loving him. This man, still a boy, had so tenderly taken her virginity a few moments ago, and who was now mercilessly stealing away her life, as he had so many before, yet she found her heart calling out to the one that pushed her own back with murderous hatred.

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His hands roamed over her body, reaching up to cup her breast, softly kneading it through her light blouse. She moaned underneath him, which caused to excite him further. She shifted slightly below him and gasped when she felt a hardness on her inner thigh. She looked up at him with large shining eyes. He stayed his hands and had a questioning look on his face. She nodded up at him before meeting his lips once more.

In the heated rush of young lovers they found themselves merely pushing the barrier of clothes aside to find a relief of the touch of heated skin. He pinned her arms above her head with one hand and watched as she shut her eyes when he entered her. A single tear from the pain ran down her cheek as he raised the blade above his head and as she opened her eyes again reflecting the soft sunset he thrust the blade deep within her soft flesh.

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She watched him. Watched as he pulled the blade from her side and dropped it in a small patch of clover lying to the right of their bodies. He began to shake, her words finally registering in the place where he shoved his true self. The one who sat in the corner of his mind rocking back and forth, the one who had been too afraid in the past to stop the homicides. _I forgive you_. She forgave him, wholeheartedly, and deep within his own body, perhaps his own mind, something began to pulse. The real man started to fight back, to take control of the monster that was outside.

He reached a shaking hand out to grasp the side of her face, mimicking her actions. A bloody handprint was left to mar her perfect skin.

"What have I done?" he asked shakily and began to weep. She held him to her chest despite how shallow her breathing had become. His tears soaked through her thin blouse and somehow comforted her. She was dying; her life oozing out of her at such a rate there was no going back, and yet her killer's tears somehow made that a bit better. Knowing that he wept over what he had just done comforted her, if only a little.

He shot up quickly from her body and began looking around. Comprehension began filling every feature of his face as he began to redress, what little he had discarded in their heated frenzy what seemed ages ago.

"I can stop this," he said, his eyes clearing a little from the dark haze that had covered them moments ago.

"Yes, you can," she replied, "but I will leave you anyway."

"NO!" he shouted at her. "No, I can't... I won't..."

"But you will. You'll let me go. But..." she began coughing, and was scared to find traces of blood in what she had coughed up. Only minutes now. She only had minutes.

He looked horrified. Eyes nearly bulging from their sockets sweat standing out on his tanned forehead, and his mouth slightly hanging agape. He knew. He knew, somewhere deep in his mind that it was he that had killed and not a demon, he had done this so many times before. So why was this time different? She forgave him. She knew who he was, what he had done, and she forgave him.

She hadn't screamed either. No bloodcurdling scream like so many before her. She even touched him willingly afterwards. A truth began to form in his mind: she was the demon. Sent to show him the truth of his actions, she accepted him, believed in him, and forgave him for his horrors. She was the demon who forced him to look at who he really was, accept that he had pillaged all of those women, and take responsibility for the blood that stained his hands.

"Not my demon, my angel," he whispered to himself. He knelt down next to her, pulling her frail body to his own. He began to stroke her hair, not caring that he drew harsh lines of blood through the ink black strands. He smoothed her floral skirt down and pulled her blouse closed, giving her the little decency he could give to her, and began rocking her slowly.

"Inuyasha?"

"Kagome?"

Her breathing had become horribly ragged. Shudders racked her body. He tried to pull her closer, her body flush against his, but she shuddered anyway. She was not cold. She lifted her face so she could see his. He looked down at her, cheeks wet with fresh tears, his breath barely visible in the early autumn air, and nodded.

"Kiss me?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Fresh hot tears came streaming down his face and he looked up to the sky hoping for an answer. What he found was the Demon Moon leering back at him, taunting what he had become, what he had gained, and what he had lost in a single night. He looked back down at the small girl lying in his arms and felt a flood of emotions. Relief, for he had been freed from the monster that he was with a single phrase from an innocent girl, fear, that he would never be able to repay her, because she lay dying by his hand, and what was unmistakably love, that someone had been so willing to give herself to him, and after knowing what a horrible being he truly was, accepted him, and now, after everything, only asks for a kiss.

He leaned down to her, his lips a breath away from hers, and whispered, "I'm sorry," before he captured her lips in a chaste kiss. When he pulled back he saw she was crying and staring passed him. _At the Demon Moon_, he thought. Then she said something he thought he would never hear in his life.

With one last shuddering breath she whispered into the breeze, "I love you, Inuyasha."

Her glassy eyes stared aimlessly to the sky, her mouth hung open with blood drying on her face and hair. He cried again, burying his face in between her neck and her shoulder. She loved him and he had killed her. He had to gain a hold of himself. If he stayed in the park much longer someone was bound to find them, he originally planned to be gone minutes ago. But he had to do something first. Something to show her he loved her just as much, that he would never forget his angel.

He picked up his blade. Forgotten on the evening dew covered clover and picked up her right hand. Drawing the tip of the blade across her palm he took her blood one last time that night. Dipping the blade into the incision he reached up to the tree that towered over them and began to carve, reaching down every few strokes to get more blood from her hand. After only a few minutes he had finished and stood back to see the finished products. There on the base of the tree were their initials carved in blood red. A symbol was made of a simple love that was found that night, a symbol of the last sacrifice to the Demon Moon.

He realized he had been there too long. _They_ had been there too long. Everything he had learned over the years began to surface as he checked where they had been for any evidence of what had happened. He picked up the blade and her body, which had become heavier with the onset of death, and began to walk to the lake in the park. He needed to get any remnants of himself off of her as he was leaving the body to be found. He had buried the others before. Deemed "Lost Persons" for all time, but she was different. He wanted her to be with family, even her friends that she had recently turned away from, one last time.

He reached the lake and laid her down by the water's edge. Stripping her slowly, lovingly, he began washing her clothes, hoping the lake water would wash away any hairs or skin cells he had lost throughout the night. When he was satisfied with the clothes he laid them on the bank and turned back to her. Her eyes were still open, still staring, trying to find something. He reached over and closed her eyes and began the painstakingly slow task of washing her body. He knew what remained on her, what they would find, but they wouldn't know it was from him. No one knew about him, after all. He, like the Demon Moon would disappear in a few days, and perhaps appear again at another time, seeming the same but inevitably changed. He would return to this same town again, someday, carrying a single rose to the middle of a park and setting it down at the base of a tree.

When satisfied with the cleansing of her body he redressed her carefully and gave her a small push, sending her floating into the lake. In the moonlight she still looked alive, simply taking a quick dip in the lake. He watched her for a moment more and then turned and walked away, never to see her again.

In the week that followed the town buzzed with the death of the girl. Mothers meeting in the hair salon would comment with, "She was such a sweet girl," or "Such a shame, she was so young." The police department had placed their leading detective on the case, but the only results that came up were remains of semen and saliva secretions, common among homicidal cases involving rape. The detective even came up with a profile for the town to stay alert for: a male, ages 25-45, and athletic stature, with possibly dark hair. He had made a profile for over 45% of the town's population, and needless to say the department did not think they would find the killer, "An isolated event," the sheriff had said.

The service had been lovely with a eulogy read by her brother. She had been buried close to home, but many brought flowers to the park to leave in remembrance. Some even placed them by the tree, unaware to the fact that her last breath had been drawn under its boughs. For those that actually looked at the tree, they saw a set of initials very neatly and precisely carved into the trunk. The initials dripping something that looked a little like sap, and startlingly a lot like blood. But mourners just shook it off, for why would someone have carved initials in blood?

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Well, hope ya liked it! An original short story adapted for fanfic lovers. I know... I know... it was really dark, but that's my genre norm. I like psycho-thrillers, I can't help it! Anywho, let me know what you think? BakaInuGirl


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